Shermantine: FBI dig in wrong spot

Agency to begin sifting through excavated dirt

LINDEN - With two weeks of preparation behind them, FBI agents expect today to begin digging and sifting through dirt excavated from a Linden well in search of murder victims buried there by killers Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog.

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By Scott Smith

recordnet.com

By Scott Smith

Posted Jan. 24, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By Scott Smith

Posted Jan. 24, 2013 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

LINDEN - With two weeks of preparation behind them, FBI agents expect today to begin digging and sifting through dirt excavated from a Linden well in search of murder victims buried there by killers Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog.

Work could take days or weeks, the FBI said.

But in letters received Wednesday from Shermantine, the death row inmate said that agents are digging in an area he did not show them. State Sen. Cathleen Galgiani received one of the letters and a copy of a second Shermantine wrote to an Agent Campion.

"I know you've went (to) some other place, rather than dig where I told you to," Shermantine wrote. "For you to just go out there and dig two hundred yards from where I said to is just wrong on all levels."

Galgiani, who has visited and corresponded with Shermantine in her search for victims' remains, said the convicted killer also told her that they were in the wrong place if they didn't find car parts and trash in the old wells.

Shermantine has sent Galgiani and bounty hunter Leonard Padilla detailed maps, and none of them indicate burial sites on that place along Flood Road.

Still, Galgiani remains hopeful that the FBI will find success.

"I hate to second-guess what they're doing," she said, adding that it took repeated attempts for investigators last year to find the remains of Cyndi Vanderheiden and Chevy Wheeler.

The FBI in August took Shermantine off death row to point to places that they should next search. Shermantine saw a television news broadcast in his cell of the recent work farther east on Flood Road than he showed the FBI.

The digging on Flood Road began Jan. 7, when the FBI's Technical Hazard Response Unit and Drill Tech Drilling and Shoring Inc. began boring and sent down camera gear to try to find the bottom of the well. They have yet to find it.

Initially estimated at 50 feet deep, the well could go down 200 feet or more.

The FBI has cemented in place a 10-foot-wide corrugated pipe next to the 5-foot-wide well. The crew will begin drilling with heavy equipment down next to the well while removing soil from the well by hand.

Soil taken from the well will be sifted, and if any remains are recovered, excavation will stop and the crew will decide then how to continue so they recover as much as possible. They're also taking the workers' safety seriously, FBI spokeswoman Gina Swankie said.

Special Agent in Charge Herbert Brown has said that agents have investigated the case for months and are not working solely off what Shermantine told them.

Keith Gross of A & A Gross Drilling said he wasn't surprised that the old, hand-dug well was 180 to 200 feet deep. It probably dates back to the 1800s, and it may have been dug by Chinese laborers using a tripod and a 5-gallon bucket, he said.

"Maybe a couple of neighbors got together and started digging," Gross said. "They had to make the pit big enough to swing a pick in there."

The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office in February excavated a well nearby on Flood Road, where they found the remains of at least three people, a fetus, a washing machine and car parts as deep as 50 feet down.

Shermantine and Herzog were believed to have disposed of victims in the area because it was remote, yet a short drive from their homes in Linden. The pair of boyhood friends were arrested in 1999, ending their 15-year, methamphetamine-fueled killing spree.

Shermantine, now on death row at California State Prison, San Quentin, led investigators to two shallow graves in Calaveras County as well as the Linden wells.

Herzog hanged himself one year ago after learning that Shermantine was giving up the burial places.

Gross said he helped fill in an open pit well in the Linden area like those now drawing attention with sand and placed a cement cap on top. Local agencies feared contamination and the danger of people or livestock falling in.